I just read over at the Wall Street Journal the Abbot Recall Site and Hotlines are over whelmed so be prepared to wait. In the meantime, there’s other technologies like Microsoft Tags that could have (if used) enabled consumers the opportunity to scan for recalled products by using their cell phone. If you like this idea, give it a positive vote on the poll. There’s a long write up summary on the image above and it can be found at the top of my blog where it has a permanent resting spot.

There will be more recalls in both food, drug and device products so we need a system that can work for everyone and especially the consumer as we are the ones affected. When you look at this map, and when products were scanned, guess what, it could give Abbott even more intelligence in knowing where the product was due to “spots” on the map so they in turn could be more pro-active here too with finding the product quicker! What technology that is available today for implementation can do and save lives too.

Here’s a somewhat long press release from Abbott that you have to dig in and read to figure out if you are in possession of any of the recalled products, again one swipe and scan with a cell phone would have been whole lot easier. Wait until you see the huge listing of lot numbers, and give a positive vote for convenience if you would have rather just scanned with your phone.

Remember this Mom who tweeted in on how she could have used cell phone scanning technology to find the 7 J and J products she needed to check for recalls? BD

Dark Arts of Mathemical Deception

Professor Charlie Siefe of NYU, a mathematician debunks clinical trials, and few other items to where data is spun and fools you, every day example, hear about the perfect butt algorithm and more. These are probably some things you have never thought about but again after listening to what he has to say, it’s time to think about being skeptical. Here’s a radio show that also talks about the same topics.

This video digs in a bit further with how fictitious business models are used by banks and companies do this too. The models are so complex that CEOs don’t even understand them. “Quants, The Alchemists of Wall Street will take you through how “math models” work at banks and financial institutions in a way that even the layman can understand. More videos like over at theAlgo Duping/Killer Algorithm Page. Bank of America will also tell you“IT’ is a business” how they make money.

Weapons of Math Destruction

This is a lecture where Kathy O’Neill, a former Quant who worked for a Hedge Fund (Weapons of Math Destruction) on Wall Street will tell you what is done with your retirement money and more. The banks and companies use technology to take advantage because they can. “Of course we are going to take advantage because our tools are our brains…if they could figure out a way to take advantage of pension funds they would, a good interview with explaining smart money and dumb money.

Algorithms Shape The World

This is a very good presentation done a TED Conference and really was the one that got everyone started thinking about algorithms and today it’s talked about a lot. As he says “if you’re an algorithm, life is looking pretty good, but can’t say the same for humans”. What is a black box? Nobody has any control over the flash crash. We have moved forward a bit but still we are writing the unreadable and lost the sense of some of what is happening. Nice plug for Nanex here with research.